"Cato" 


on  ConRtiLutional  "Money" 


I 


George  Washington  Flowers 
Memorial  Collection 

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FAMILY  OF 

COLONEL  FLOWERS 


lUEASURtROOM 


C  A.TO" 


CONSTITUTIOiNiL  "MONEY" 


LEGAL  TENDER. 


IN     TWELVE     NUilBEUS 
From  the  Chaklestos  Mbrcdbt. 


CHARLESTON: 

iTKAM-roWEn     PBESXF.S     or     KVAHO     4     COKHWEI-b, 
3  Broad  uml  103  Eant  Bny  rtrpeU. 


SCAN  THE  EVIL  OMENS. 

Obsta  principiu. 


No.  I. 

To  TiiK  EniTOH  OF  THE  Mercury  :  If  the  Constitm  on  of  the 
Confederate  States  is  to  be  preserved,  and  is  deemed  A\orth  pre- 
8ervin<;-.  it  is  time  for  all  who  so  resolve,  and  who  so  think,  to 
examine  the  omens  that  forbode  misohief,  and  oppose,  in  their 
inei])ienc3-,  the  insidious  or  heedless  devices  that  will  sap  and 
undermine  all  limitations  of  Confederate  power,  unless  they  be 
crushed  in  embryo. 

Some  time  last  spring,  the  editor  of  a  Savannah  paper,  re- 
ferring to  the  measui'c  adopted  bj'the  Congress  at  Washington, 
to  make  the  Treasury  notes  issued  there  a  legal  tender  in  the 
payment  of  debts,  observed  (in  substance)  that  he  presumed 
such  a  measure  was  not  a  violation  of  the  Constitution  of  the 
United  States,  because  the  prohibition  to  make  anything  but 
gold  and  silver  current  coin  a  legal  tender  was  on  a  State,  not 
on  ('ongress.  Soon  after  a  niein  I  ler  of  Congress  from  Louisiana 
(Dupre,  I  think  it  was)  proposed  such  a  measure  respecting  our 
Treasury  notes,  in  the  shape  of  a  resolution  of  inquiry,  referred 
to  a  committee.  Upon  the  first  intimation  of  this  scheme  from 
Savanmih,  I  wrote  a  communication  in  condemnation  of  it  for 
a  IJiclimond  paper,  which  never  saw  the  light.  I  was  appri.sed 
the  like  conceit  had,  last  winter,  entered  the  Iiead  of  a  promi- 
nent person  in  Mississipjii,  and  that  there  was  reason  to  believe 
it  was  not  wiiolly  without  support  in  South  Carolina.  Early 
in  the  present  session  of  Congress  (I  quote  from  the  newspaper 
reporters  of  Richmond),  "Mr.  (lartrell,  of  Georgia,  offered  a 
bill  making  Treasury  notes  a  legal  tender  in  p.ijMnent  of  debts. 
To  desired  prompt  action,  and  moved  that  the  bill  be  made  the 


'3G2V79 


4 

special  order  for  Tuesday  of  next  ■reek.  Mr.  Curry,  of  Ala- 
bama, said  the  business  of  the  House  had  been  greatlj-  im- 
peded, at  its  last  session,  by  the  numerous  special  orders.  He 
hoped  we  would  avoid  the  evil  now.  Mr.  Gartrell  modified  his 
motion  so  as  to  refer  tlie  bill  to  the  Committee  on  the  Judi- 
ciary. Mr.  Curry  assented,  and  hoped  for  an  early  report,  for 
he,  too,  desired  prompt  decision,  and  also  a  prompt  rejection  of 
the  bill.  Mr.  Foote,  of  Tennessee,  joined  in  a  desire  for  a 
prompt  report,  but  hoped  that  it  would  bo  favorable-  to  the 
bill." 

Eecentlythe  following  is  reported  as  oecurriag  in  the  House: 

"  By  Mr.  Swan  :  a  memorial  asking  that  Confederate  notes  be 
made  a  legal  tender.  By  Mr.  Baldwin  :  a  petition  upon  the 
same  subject,  signed  by  a  large  number  of  the  citizens  of  Rock- 
ingham." 

The  lliclimond  Enquirer,  of  August  2H,  contained  a  communi- 
cation, provoking  no  comment  editorially,  in  which  it  is  said  : 
"  We  never  can  get  along  vight  until  Confederate  currency  be 
made  a  legal  tender.  All  the  debts  of  the  country  call  for  dollars 
or  coin;  and  how  can  debtors  live  through  this  great  struggle 
for  our  independence,  unless  they  can  pay  their  old  debts  with 
Confederate  notes  or  bonds  ?  The  regulations  make  me  and 
all  others  take  it  for  everything  sold,  and  why  not  make  all 
take  it  for  their  old  dues?  The  sinews  of  war  must  be  sus- 
tained. No  man  sliould  be  suffered  to  refuse  it  on  any  grounds. 
Nearly  all  East  Tennessee  is  polluted  with  tories,  and,  of 
course,  the  major  part  of  the  debts  here  are  due  tories,  and  will 
our  Government  longer  let  them  refuse  Confederate  currency 
for  their  old.  dollars  and  coin  debts  f  If  it  should,  it  gives  them 
six  per  cent,  advantage  over  the  debtors,  whose  money  lies  on 
hand,  while  he  pays  a  tory  six  per  cent,  on  what  he  owes. 
Constitutional  or  not,  make  that  money  a  legal  tender 
during  the  war  and  you  will  see  the  rich  fruits  of  it." 

The  Richmond  Whig,  of  late  date,  whose  motto  is,  "  The 
Constitution — States  llights" — declares,  editorially,  as  follows  : 
*'  Whether  Constitutional  or  not,  the  issues  of  the  Confederate 
government  must  be  made  a  legal  tender." 

In  the  last  number  of  that  paper  which  I  have  seen  (Septem- 
ber -i),  a  corres])ondent,  unrobuked,  elaborates  the  doctrine,  on 
the  authority  of  Worcester's  Dictionary,  that  to  coin  money,  and 


regulate  the  value  thereof,  is  not  only  to  stamp  and  regulate 
the  value  and  give  currency  to  metals,  domestic  and  foreign, 
but  embraces  also  a  paper  currency,  promises  to  paj^,  even 
notes  of  hand,  etc.  These  citations  will  show  that  mischief  is 
brewing  in  and  out  of  our  Congress,  and  how  loose  and  reckless 
are  the  propositions  made  from  sundiy  quarters,  and  that  J  am 
not  making  false  clamor. 

Cato. 


No.  II. 

It  is  to  me  surprising  and  humiliating,  that,  at  so  early  a 
day  after  our  Confederate  Constitution  was  ushered  into  being, 
an  argument  should  be  needed,  \}y  a  member  of  Congress 
especialh',  to  show  that  the  Confederate  government,  or  any 
department  of  it,  has  no  power  to  make  anything  a  legal  ten- 
der, in  payment  of  debts,  except  gold  and  silver  current  coin. 
But  it  seems  manifest,  from  what  has  already  appeared,  that 
the  poison  of  the  fatal  teachings  of  Alexander  Hamilton  and 
the  old  Federal  party,  of  Henry  Clay  and  the  Whig  party,  and 
of  that  Consolidation  party  which  undermined  and  destroyed 
the  Constitution  of  the  United  States  and  the  Union  it  con- 
structed, has  even  thus  early  begun  to  corrupt  the  blood  of  our 
body  politic. 

Let  us  then  look  at  the  language. of  our  Constitution.  Here 
it  is : 

"The  Congress  shall  have  power  —  to  coin  money,  regulate 
the  value  thereof  and  of  foreign  coin,  and  fix  the  standard  of 
weights  and  measures. 

"  To  provide  for  the  punishment  of  counterfeiting  the  securi- 
ties and  current  coin  of  the  Confederate  States. 

"  To  borrow  money  on  the  credit  of  the  Confederate  States. 

"To  raise  and  support  armies;, but  no  appropriations  of 
money  to  that  use  shall  bo  for  a  longer  term  than  two  years. 

"  No  money  shall  be  drawn  from  the  Treasury,  but  in  conse- 
quence of  appropriations  made  by  law,"  etc. 

"  Congress  shall  appropriate  no  money,  from  the  Treasury 
except  by  a  vote  of  two-thirds  of  both  Houses,"  etc. 

"All  bills  appropriating  money  shall  spceiTy  in  Federal  cur- 


3(i9779 


G 


rency  the  exact  amount  of  each  npproprialion,  and  the  purposes 
for  which  it  shall  be  made,"  etc. 

Lastly:  "IS'o  State  ishall  coin  nionry;  make  anything  but 
ijjold  and  silver  coin  a  tender  in  paj'ment  of  debts;  pass  any 
bill  of  attainder,  or  ex  post  facto  law,  or  law  impairing  the  ob- 
ligation of  contracts,  or  grant  any  title  of  nobility." 

These  are  several  of  the  connections  in  which  our  Constitu- 
tion uses  the  Avord  ''  money." 

I  affirm  that,  from  neither  of  the  foregoing  provisions,  nor 
from  all  combined,  can  the  power  claimed  be  derived. 

What  was  the  object  in  enabling  CoTigress  to  coin  money  and 
to  regulate  the  value  thereof  and  of  foreign  coin,  and  in  re- 
straining a  State  from  coinings  money  and  from  making  any- 
thing but  gold  and  silver  cui'rent  coin  a  legal  tender  in  payment 
of  debts?  It  was  a  necessary  complement  to  that  other  power 
granted  to  Congress  —  to  regulate  commerce  with  foreign 
nations,  among  the  several  States,  and  with  the  Indian  tribes. 
!No  such  regulation  of  commerce  could  be  of  any  avail  for  good, 
if  there  were  not  a  standard  of  value  such  as  should  protect  the 
rights  of  creditors  and  ascertain  the  obligation  of  debtors  with 
such  certainty  and  ])ermanency  as  should  establish  justice,  cir- 
cumvent fraud,  and  supersede  endless  and  ruinous  disputes. 

For  such  end  the  recognized  standard  of  the  commercial 
world  was,  and  is,  and  ever  will  be,  alone  adequate — i.  e.,  gold 
and  silver.  That  standard  alone,  coined  and  regulated  in 
value  by  authority  of  Congress,  was  the  "money"  in  contem- 
plation; that  money,  and  only  that,  could  any  State  make  a 
legal  tender  in  payment  of  debts;  that  money,  and  only  that, 
could  be  made  the  solvent  of  debts  and  the  measure  of  commer- 
cial values  between  foreign  traders  or  those  of  dilferent  States, 
among  themselves,  so  as  to  secure  justice,  concord,  and  profit- 
able trailic.  Such  measure  and  standard  of  commercial  values 
was  alone  recognized  by  the  commercial  nations  of  the  eartii 
the  most  convenient,  the  most  enduring,  capable  of  the  most 
exactness,  and  the  most  consecrated  by  its  antiquity.  Surebr 
was  there  abundant  reason  to  lead  those  who  concocted,  and 
those  who  ratified,  the  provisions  of  the  Constitution  of  the 
United  States,  respecting  this  subject,  to  set  up  the  standard  of 
gold  and  silver,  current  coin,  as  the  measure  of  value;  for, 
were  they  not  thoroughly  educated  in  this  behall'  by  a  knowl- 


edge  of  what  resulted,  in  confusion,  injustice,  desolation,  angiy 
collisions,  from  the  Continental  ^'  7noney,"  and  the  jarring,  dis- 
cordant, unfaithful,  and  mischievous  legislation  of  numerous 
independent  sovereignties,  touching  debts,  contracts,  currencj', 
and  standards  of  value  ? 

Cato. 


No.  III. 

If  gold  and  silver  current  coin  was  thus  imperiously  de- 
manded for  the  great  ends  of  international  and  interstate  com- 
merce,  and  the  judicious  and  proper  regulation  thereof,  why 
should  a  Confederate  any  more  than  a  State  government  be 
permitted  to  thwart  the  great  end  and  aim  of  a  constitutional 
stipulation,  and  introduce  a  scene  not  onl}-  of  confusion  worse 
confounded,  in  the  relations  of  individuals  and  communities,  in 
transactions  of  the  gravest  importance,  and  as  closely  connected 
with  public  as  private  prosperity,  but  to  subvert  the  carefully 
constructed  foundation  of  good  morals,  plain  justice,  stipulated 
and  covenanted  right  in  contracts,  between  man  and  man, 
people  and  people  ? 

The  Confederate  Congress  has  the  exclusive  power  to  "coin 
money  and  regulate  the  value  thereof  and  of  foreign  coin.'' 
That  is  a  power  wholl}-  distinct  from  the  power  to  make  that 
coin  a  legal  tender,  or  to  make  anything  whatever  a  legal  ten- 
der. It  was  a  power  pertaining  to  the  reserved  rights  of  the 
States  to  declare  what  should  be  a  legal  tender.  The  very 
restriction  u])on  a  State,  confining  its  power  in  that  respect  to 
gold  and  silver  current  coin,  shows  this  by  conclusive  inference; 
and  the  restriction  was,  and  is,  proper  and  necessary,  and  natu- 
rally followed  the  provision  granting  to  Congress  the  exclusive 
right  to  coin  the  specified  metals,  fix  their  Value,  and  declare 
what  domestic  or  foreign  coin  should  be  current.  The  one 
government  should  coin  gold  and  silver,  or  adopt  that  coined 
by  another  government,  fix  the  value  thereof,  and  the  other 
sliould  make  that  alone  a  legal  tender.  Thus  the  function  pre- 
scribed to  each  government  was  explicitly  defined.  Every  coin 
made  and  issued  by  the  United  States  government  was  not, 


8 


ipso  facto,  a  legal  tender;  for  example,  copper  cents^  offered  in 
satisfaction  of  a  stipulation  to  pay  dollars.  It  is  not  Congress, 
but  the  Constitution,  that  puts  on  a  State, the  prohibition  as  to 
what  it  shall  declare  a  legal  tender;  and  will  any  man  in  the 
Confederate  Congress,  or  out  of  it,  be  listened  to,  with  patience 
and  resj)ect,  who  teaches  that  what  is  prohibited  to  a  State,  and 
not  proliibitcd  to  Congress,  by  express  terms,  is,  therefore, 
granted  to  Congress  ? 

The  writer  for  the  Eichmond  Whig,  herein  before  referred  to, 
who  proposes  further  to  elaborate  his  ideas,  borrows  certain 
definitions  of  "money"  and  of  "coin"  from  John  Taylor,  Jun., 
and  from  Worcester's  Dictionary.  From  the  first,  as  follows: 
Money  is  "a  token  of  a  certain  nominal  amount,  issued  by 
government  in  return  for  value  received,  and  payable  at  the 
Exchequer  for  taxes."  From  Worcester  :  "  Money,  originally 
stamped  coin,  is  now  apjDlied  to  whatever  serves  as  a  circulating 
medium;  including  bank  notes  and  drafts,  as  well  as  metallic 
coins."  "  Cash  is  ready  money,  and  is  sometimes  restricted  to 
coin  or  metallic  money  bearing  a  legal  stamp,  but  it  is  commonly 
used  to  include  bank  notes,  drafts,"  etc.  The  same  writer 
summons  Worcester  to  help  out  his  argument  by  conforming 
the  word  ''  coin"  to  the  necessities  of  his  logic,  and  gets  what 
follows:  "  Coin,  that  with  which  payment  is  made."  "To  coin, 
or  to  convert  into  money;  to  fashion  or  form  by  stamping." 
Thereupon  ho  concludes,  and  inculcates  the  doctrine,  that  what- 
ever Congress  "  stamps  "  for  money  is  money,  is  the  same  as 
*'  coined  "  money,  and  being  declared  cui'rent,  is  properly  to  be 
also  declared  a  legal  tender  in  payment  of  debts.  It  is  plain, 
that  a  State  can't  make  anything  but  "  gold  and  silver  curi'ent 
coin"  such  tender,  for  it  is  expressly  restricted  to  those  metals,  ■ 
coined  by  the  Confederate  government,  and  those  coined  by 
foreign  governments,  made  current  and  regulated  in  value  by 
the  Congress.  Here,  then,  we  have  the  remarkable  result  that 
a  State  can  have  alone  one  legal  tender,  one  specified  standard 
of  value,  and  the  (,\)nfcderate  government  may  declare  a  totally 
different  thing  such.  So  there  may  be,  in  the  same  country, 
two  different  standards  of  commercial  value,  wholl}^  unequal  to 
each  other — the  one  capable  of  sustaining  foreign  trade,  and 
the  other  not.  Was  not  the  object  of  the  constitution  to  have 
sx  _stajidard,  one  fixed  standard,  to  measure  all  commercial  values, 


9 


in  all  traffic,  foreign  and  domestic?  Was  not  that  the  neces- 
sity ?  If  so  (and  who  can  doubt  it),  the  scheme  of  the  Avriter 
allirded  to,  and  those  who  concur  with  him,  in  and  out  of  Con- 
gress, is  unfounded,  unconstitutional,  wild,  and  visionar}'.  That 
it  is  also  disastrously  mischievous,  subversive  of  justice  and 
moral  obligation  and  dut\',  is  a  legitimate  inference,  and  will 
be  hereafter  shown. 

If  Worcester  is  to  be  our  constitution,  quoad  hoc,  or  the 
authorized  interpreter  of  it,  then  truly  is  he  the  patroti  saint  of 
a  needy  and  unscrupulous  government.  If  he  teaches  that  the 
government  "stamp"  upon  anything  as  money,  with  a  regula- 
tion of  its  value  and  a  declaration  of  its  currency,  thereby 
makes  that  thing  coined  money,  "  current  money,"  then  may 
the  government  so  treat  any  other  thing  it  pleases  as  money, 
if  it  can  be  stamped  ^  for,  by  the  argument,  the  Confederate 
government  is  confined  to  no  one  thing  among  the  vast  number 
capable  of  being  stamped,  of  being  regulated  in  value,  and  of 
being  declared  curreiit  money.  Hence,  if  the  government  at 
llichmond  abound  in  mules,  or  iron,  or  calico,  et  id  omne  genus, 
it.  may  stamp  either  or  all,  regulate  the  value  as  money,  declare 
such  mone}'  current,  and  thus  it  has  executed  its  function  "  to 
coin  n)(niey  and  regulate  the  value  thereof.*  I  do  not  wish  to 
pervert  or  misrepresent  the  argument  I  combat,  but  I  verily 
believe,  and  it  is  submitted  to  the  reader,  that  I  have  only  ex- 
posed its  legitimate  consequences. 

The  fallacy-  springs,  and  the  reductio  ad  absurdum  follows, 
from  the  false  premise  assumed,  to  wit:  that  Congress  has 
anything  to  do  respecting  a  legal  tender  in  payment  of  debts; 
in  forgetting  that  the  matter  pertained  to  the  reserved  rights 
of  the  States;  and  in  overlooking  the  fact  that  the  Constitu- 
tion settles  what  shall  be  money,  and  what  shall  be,  tlierefore, 
a  legal  tender  in  payment  of  debts. 

1  urge,  further,  that  if  stamping  a  promise  to  pay  (a  promis- 
sory note),  regulating  the  value  and  declaring  the  same  current 
money,  is  to  "coin  money,"  etc.,  that  process  applied  by  Con- 
gress to  any  promise  to  pay,  a  ])romissory  note  of  the  Bank  of 
England  or  France,  or  of  any  individual,  is  equally  within  its 
competence,  and  i»  also  "  coining  money,"  etc. 

Cato. 


10 


No.  IV. 


If  a  Yankee  dictionaiy  deserved  to  be  an  arbiter  on  this 
question,  1,  too,  might  cite,  in  support  of  my  view,  one  quite  as 
good  as  Worcester  —  I  mean  Webster.  He  ought,  at  any 
rate,  to  be  respectfully  listened  to  by  such  as  repose  any  trust 
in  dictionaries  when  a  Constitution  is  under  consideration.  He 
says  "money  and  mint  arc  the  same  word  varied.  Money, 
coin  —  stam])ed  metal,  any  piece  of  metal,  usually  gold,  silver, 
or  copper,  stamped  by  ])ublic  authority  and  used  as'  tlie  me- 
dium of  commerce.  2.  Bank  notes  or  bills  of  credit  issued  b}'' 
authority,  and  exchangeable  for  coin,  or  redeemable,  are  also 
called  money;  as  such  notes,  in  modern  times,  represent  coin 
and  are  used  as  a  substitute  for  it."  Yes,  called  so  —  in  modern 
times  —  when  they  are  payable  and  paid  in  coin  on  demand, 
and  when  issued  by  authority  —  and  this  because  they  are 
deemed  to  represent  coin.  But  did  the  Constitution  ever  mean 
to  call  them  so?  There  were  few  of  tlicm  in  1789,  when  the 
United  States  (Constitution  v/as  adopted;  and  since  that  time 
up  to  the  period  when  our  Constitution  was  brought  into 
being,  and  rtow,  when  eveiy  bank  in  the  land  has  suspended 
specie  payments,  and  so  continues,  did  the  Constitution  mean 
to  call  such  currency  money;  could  it  do  so  without  a  flagrant 
breach  of  truth;  could  any  man,  who  means  to  use  language 
with  tolerable  propriety,  not  to  saj''  technical  accuracy,  now 
''cair'  a  bank  note  or  draft  ^' money"?  It  is  easy  to  state  how 
it  came  to  pass  that  such  a  currency  was  "called"  money — 
loosely  so  called,  for  it  never  was  money,  even  when  payable 
and  ]iaid  on  demand  in  metallic  curreuc}^  —  coin.  It  was  so 
'"calliMl"  in  inexact  common  j)arlance,  because  when  in  fact 
redeemed  on  demand,  it  was,  in  current  transactions  among 
ourselves,  used  as  money.  The  States  chartered  many  banks 
(very  unwisely  I  think),  and  requiring,  on  pain  of  death,  their 
pajter  currency  to  be  paid  in  specie,  made  that  currency,  so 
long  as  it  was  so  redeemed,  receivable  at  their  treasuries  :  but 
onlj'  so  long.  And  how  often  has  it  been  thus  unredeemable 
and  unredeemed,  and  thus  excluded  from  the  State  treasu- 
ries and  condemned  as  utterly  unworthy  the  title  of  money? 
Never  was  it,  in  any  degree,  a  substitute  for  gold  and  silver 
coin,  or  bullion,  in  foreign  commerce;    it  never  can  be.     Is  it 


11 


not,  then,  a  rc])ronch  to  those  who  concocted  and  those  who 
ratified  the  UiiiLcd  iStatos  oi-  Confederate  Constitution,  to  im- 
])ute  to  thcni  tlie  idea  tliat,  in  their  conceptions,  money,  coin, 
meant  a  promise  to  ]>ay  it.  by  bank,  government,  or  anj'body 
eb<e;  u  promise  so  liable  to  be  violated,  and  as  often  violated  as 
kepti*  What  a  ridiculous  standard  of  value,  when  this  was 
deemed  worthy  the  sanctity  of  a  constitutional  prescription; 
Avhen  it  was  meant  to  bo  a  standard,  a  stable,  accurate,  con- 
venient, intelli^-ible,  commonly  approved  measure  of  commer- 
cial values,  in  a  eoveted  intercourse  with  foreign  communities, 
as  well  as  between  confederate  but  distinct,  independent  sove- 
reignties, and  between  man  and  man  in  the  same  or  different 
communities!  Nothing  but  gold  and  silver  has  a  single  quality 
that  belongs  to  such  a  standard,  or  that  is  worthy  to  be  set 
up  as  the  arbiter  of  justice,  right,  and  honest}',  in  the  transac- 
tions of  men  who  deal  in  trade,  or  in  contracts  that  refer  to 
"money"  as  their  subject  matter.  AVhy,  the  very  banks,  whose 
promissor}-  notes,  we  are  told,  are  "called  money,"  and  are 
80  meant  to  be  regarded  by  the  Constitution,  and  would  be, 
if  stamped  by  the  authorit}-  of  Congress,  and  worthy  to  be 
declai-ed  a  legal  tender,  arc  drawing  their  ch'ecks  upon  a 
depository  in  so  many  "dollars,"  "payable  in  current  funds." 
Suppose  Congress  M'ere  to  undertake,  to-day,  "to  regulate  (i.  c. 
to  lix)  the  value"  of  the  Confederate  Treasury -iiotes,  or  of 
bank  notes,  according  to  what  standard  would  it  be  fixed?  Is 
there  any  more  accuracy  or  justice  attainable  in  fixing  the 
value  of  such  a  promissory  note  than  in  fixing  the  value  of 
mine  or  3'ours?  Our  Confederate  govcrninent  is  to  pay,  "  in 
dollars,"  six  months  after  the  war  is  ended  and  a  treaty  of 
peace  ratified.  Now,  when  it  is  said  that  such  a  paper  is 
"money,"  "coin,"  if  the  subject  admitted  an  impulse  of  humor, 
I  might  be  tempted  to  borrow  the  language  of  JIouack,  and 
exclaim  :  "  Rlsum  tmeatis  amici"?  To  "regulate  the  value"  of 
a  money  currency,  a  thing  worthy  to  become  a  legal  tender  in 
p^ymentof  debts,  it  must  be  referred  to  some  permanent,  accu- 
rate, and  recognized  element;  and  when  "regulated"  in  value, 
it  must  have  the  attributes  of  permanency,  actual  value  in  tiie 
estimation  of  the  world,  and  a  fitnc.'^s  to  measure  the  value 
of  all  exchangeable  commodities,  in  traffic,  foreign  or  domestic 
—  as  well  as  other  attributes  not  now  necessary  to  be  enumer- 


12 


atcd.  Has  a  promissory  note,  even  to  pay  on  demand — above 
all,  lias  a  promissory  note,  such  as  the  Confederacy  issues  — 
a  single  one  of  such  attributes?  It  is  enough  to  ask  the  ques- 
tion, there  can  bo  but  one  answer.  It  is  too  plain  to  admit  of 
discussion,  that  a  promise  to  pay,  issued  by  government,  bank- 
ing corporation,  or  individual,  is  liable  to  constant  fluctuation 
in  value,  from  numerous  causes  —  so  many  as  to  defy  com- 
plete specifications;  and,  therefore,  such  a  thing  being  incajja- 
ble  of  valuation  for  a  daj"  or  an  hour  in  the  future,  i.s  totally 
unfit  to  become  the  standard  of  value  of  anything  else,  which 
"money"  must  be,  and  gold  and  silver  coin  actually  is.  A 
vane  on  a  spire  would  be  its  counterpart,  as  to  changoableness ; 
but  it  deserves  to  be  said  for  the  vane,  that  it  answers  its 
purpose,  and  is,  therefore,  not  deserving  of  condemnation. 

To  those  who  draw  inspiration  upon  this  subject  from  dic- 
tionaries, let  it  be  observed  that  the  favorite  one  (Worcester) 
is  in  authority  against  them,  for  he  interprets  "coin"  as  metals 
stamped.  He  says:  "Coin  or  metallic  money  bearing  a  legal 
stamp."  iS'or  will  any  encouragement  be  derived  by  those 
whose  ideas  I  controvert  Irom  Webster's  exposition  of  '■'■coin.'" 
But  1  have  done  with  lexicographers." 

*  Cato. 


No.  V. 

We  can  draw  instruction  as  to  the  true  meaning  of  the  words 
"  to  coin  raone}^,  regulate  the  value  thereof  and  of  foreign 
coin,"  Irom  sources  vastly  more  profound  and  authoritative 
than  any  dictionary,  or  of  all  of  them  combined,  and  to  such 
sources  1  resort. 

Tiie  (Committee  of  Five  presented  to  the  Convention  at 
Philadelphia,  August  (i,  1787,  the  "  Draft  of  a  Constitution." 
The  draft  contained  the  following  language,  Art.  7,  enumerat- 
ing the  powers  of  Congress,  to  wit :  "  To  coin  money  :  to  regu- 
late the  value  of  foreign  coin — lo  borrow  money,  and  emit  bills 
on  the  credit  of  the  United  States."  Art.  13 :  No  State,  without 
the  consent  of  the  Legislature  of  the  United  States,  shall   emit 


13 


bills  of  credit,  or  make  anything  l)ut  spkcik  a  tender  in  pay- 
ment of  debts,"  etc. 

]S^OAv,  observe,  according  to  the  "  draft "  Congress  was  to  be 
cmj)Owered  to  "coin  money"  and  "  emit  bills  of  credit" — i.  e., 
a  pa])c:'  currency,  undoubtedly.  Were  they  the  same  or  equiva- 
lent things,  in  the  contemplation  of  the  convention  ?  If  so, 
■why  specif}-  both  ?  That  bod}'  knew  how  to  use  the  English 
language,  and  were  not  given  to  tautology.  The  States  wero 
prohibited  to  make  anything  but  ''specie'  a  legal  tender  ivith- 
oiit  the  consent  of  Congress.  The  scheme  is  manifest  that  pro- 
ceeded from  the  brain  of  the  Committee  of  Five.  It  was  this: 
Congress  alone  should  issue  a  paper  currency,  and  the  States 
should  be  confined,  as  to  a  legal  tender,  to  specie,  and  that 
alone,  unless  Congress  should  "emit  bills  of  credit;"  and  in 
that  case,  the  States  might,  had  Congress  authorized  it,  not  that 
they  should,  make  the  Federal  "  bills  of  credit"  a  legal  tender. 
But  not  even  by  this  scheme,  as  it  came  from  the  committee, 
was  Congress  empowered  to  declare  what  should  be  a  legal 
tender  in  paj'ment  of  debts. 

But  soon  afterward  Congress  was  shorn  of  the  power  to 
make  a  paper  currency,  or  to  allow  a  State  to  use  such  a  cur- 
rency, made  by  any  authority  whatever,  as  a  legal  tender.  To 
the  proof: 

"  Avgiist  IG.  —  It  was  moved  and  seconded  to  strike  the 
words  'and  endt  bills,'  out  of  the  8th  clause  of  the  first  section 
of  the  7th  article — which  passed  in  the  affirmative"  —  nine 
states  aye — two  (New  Jersey  and  Maryland)  na}-.  Thus  the 
clause  read  (as  it  now  reads  in  the  Constitution  of  the  United 
States  and  in  our  own)  "  to  borrow  money  on  the  credit,"  etc. 

Again  :  the  twelfth  article  of  the  "  draft "  provided  as  fol- 
lows :  "No  State  shall  coin  money  nor  grant  letters  of  marque," 
etc.  In  the  Convention,  August  '_'8,  "it  was  moved  and 
seconded  to  insert  the  words  '  nor  emit  bills  of  credit,'  after  the 
word  'money'  in  the  twelfth  article  —  which  passe<l  in  the 
affirmative" — yeas,H;  na}*,  (Virginia)  Ij  divided,  1  (Maryland). 
"  It  was  moved  and  seconded  to  insert  the  following  clause 
after  the  last  amendment:  'Nor  make  anj'thing  but  gold  and 
silver  coin  a  tendei-  in  ])aymcnt  of  debts;'  which  ])asscd  unani- 
mously in  the  aflfirmative — eleven  States  being  present."  It  is 
now  established,  upon  a  foundation  impregnable,  that  deliber- 


Jitely,  on  Kpccific  motion,  and  by  ayes  and  noes,  the  Convention, 
overruling  its  committee,  denied  to  Congress  the  power  to 
emit  "  bills  of  credit,"  or  to  authorize  the  States  to  make  a 
paper  issue  a  legal  tender,  but  explicitl}'  and  rigidly  confined 
the  former  to  the  power  to  "coin  nionoy"  —  that  is,  to  make 
specie,  to  render  it  current,  at  a  regulated  vahie,  and  the  States 
to  that,  and  that  only,  as  a  legal  tender. 

When  the  above  proceedings  are  examined  in  the  light  of  the 
liistory  of  the  times,  reflected  somewhat,  as  it  is,  by  the  debates 
in  the  State  conventions  to  which  the  (y'oiistitation  was  refer- 
red, it  is  safe  to  sa}' that  the  people,  the  ConvcrUion  at  Phila- 
delphia, and  the  statesmen  of  those  days,  almost  universally 
looked  with  horror  upon  a  paper  cui-rency.  and  they  had  the 
most  abundant  reason  for  the  sentimciit.  as  their  posterity  have 
had,  on  sundr}-  occasions  since,  llhode  Island  may  constitute  a 
special  exception,  which  State  had  gained  an  infamous  notoriety 
by  the  frauds  perpetrated  through  her  paper  issues  and  her  leg- 
islation to  support  that  currency  and  the  frauds,  not  to  nseuiion 
other  scandalous  iniquities. 

In  our  Confederate  Constitution  there  is  no  prohibition  laid 
upon  a  State  to  emit  bills  of  credit;  but  it  is  clear  such  bills 
cannot  be  made  a  legal  tender.  To  my  mind,  it  was  always 
apparent  that  a  bank  bill,  issued  b}'  a  banlc  instituted  and 
owned  by  a  State,  and  for  the  redemption  of  which  it  was 
liable,  though  the  transaction  was  eft'(Jcted  by  agents  with  a 
corporate  existence  (such,  for  example,  as  the  bills  of  tlse  Bank 
of  the  State  of  South  Carolina),  were  "  bills  of  credit,"  and  in 
conflict  with  the  Constitution  of  the  United  States.  I  am 
aware,  at  the  same  time,  that  the  contrary  was  held  by  Bald- 
win, of  the  Supreme  Court  of  the  United  States,  upon  the 
sand}'  foundation  that  the  practical  construction  of  half  a  cen- 
tury, by  State  and  Federal  governments,  maintained  tlic  doc- 
trine ruled  :  while,  if  the  question  was,  rci^  Integra,  the  contrary 
opinion.  /.  c,  my  opinion,  would  be  tlie  better  one.  Yet,  no 
consolation  can  be  dei'ivod  liy  my  o])poni  nts  from  this,  because 
no  niatter  what  a  State  may  be  entitled  to  do,  because  it  ma}- 
not  be  forbidden  by  its  constitutional  contract,  expressly  or  by 
just  implication,  it  remains  ]»erpctually,  universallj',  and  funda- 
mentally true,  that  Congress  can  tlo  nothing  which  it  is  not 
expressly  authorized  to  do. 

Cato. 


15 


No.  VI. 

I  sluill  now  appeal  to  a  source  of  information,  tliat  approaches 
the  strinf;;ent  force  of  authority  upon  the  question  of  the  true 
jncaniu;^  of  the  phrase  "to  coin  money."  I  say  approaches  the 
force  of  authority,  because  I.  an^  not  willing  to  nttrihutc  the 
force  of  absolute  authority'  to  the  ojiinions  of  iiny  man,  not 
vested  with  competent  express  power  to  make  an  irrcvci'sible, 
binding  exposition  of  any  word  in  a  Constitution,  to  which,  by 
fair  and  express  contract,  directly  or  through  nij  State,  I 
am  bound  to  yield  obedience.  I  cite  the  observations  of  Mr. 
Madison,  on  the  clause  of  t1ie  Constitution  in  question,  ex- 
pressed before  its  adoption,  and  i;i  the  face  of  that  close  and 
unsparing  scrutiny  with  whicli  its  opponents  would,  and  did, 
visit  all  his  opinions  and  expositions,  in  Conventions  to  be 
engaged  in  an  examination  of  that  instrument.  I  have,  by  no 
means,  the  same  respect  for  the  opinions  of  the  same  man,  on 
the  same  subject,  expressed  after  lie  became  an  administi-ator 
of  the  Constitution,  or  the  expounder  of  it,  being  under  the 
bhindishments  which  spring  from  the  possession  and  exercise 
of  power,  which,  evermore,  "grows  on  what  it  feeds  on,"  or  the 
disturbing  influences  of  heated  party  bias,  or  that  siren  song, 
the  unfailing  lullaby  of  a  purpose  to  usurp  and  tyrannize  —  the 
plea  of  public  necessity  —  the  inexorable  demands  of  the  con- 
dition of  war. 

In  the  4id  Xo.  Federalist,  Mr.  Madison  saj's:  "All  that  need 
be  remarUcd  on  the  power  to  coin  mone}^  regulate  the  value 
thereof  and  of  foreign  coin,  is,  that  by  providing  for  this  last 
case"  (/.  e.  as  to  foreign  coin)  "the  Constitution  has  su])plied 
a  material  omission  in  the  Articles  of  Confederation.  The 
authority  of  the  existing  Congress  is  restrained  to  the  regula- 
tion of  coin  struck  by  their  own  authority  or  that  of  the  re- 
8j)ective  States.  It  must  be  seen  at  once,  that  the  proposed 
uniformity  in  the  value  of  the  current  coin  might  lie  destroj'cd 
by  subjecting  that  of  foreign  coin  to  the  different  regulations 
of  the  fiitrcrent  States." 

In  the  43d  number  of  the  same  work,  from  the  same  pen,  is 
tlie  language  following:  "The  right  of  coining  monc}',  which 
is  here  taken  from  the  States,  was  left  in  their  hands  by  the 
Confederation,  as  a  concurrent  right   with   that  of  Congress, 


16 


under  an  exception  in  ftivor  of  the  exclusive  right  of  Congress 
to  reguhite  the  alloy  and  value.  In  thia  instance,  also,  the  new 
provision  is  an  improvement  on  the  old.  While  the  alloy  and 
value  de])eiided  on  the  general  authority,  a  right  of  coinage  in 
the  particular  States  could  have  no  other  eifect  than  to  multi- 
ply expensive  mints  and  diversify  the  forms  and  weights  of  the 
circulating  pieces.  The  latter  inconveniency  defeats  one  pur- 
pose for  which  the  power  was  originally  sulDmitted  to  the 
Federal  hcadj  and  as  far  as  the  former"  (i.  e.,  State  mints) 
"might  prevent  an  inconvenient  remittance  of  gold  and  silver 
to  the  central  mint  for  recoinage,  the  end  can  be  as  well 
attained  by  local  mints  established  under  the  general  au- 
thority." 

Now,  taking  this  exposition  as  our  guide  (and  surely  it  is 
worthy  of  all  acceptation),  who  will  pretend  to  say  that 
<'coin"  —  "to  coin  money"  —  in  the  sense  of  the  Constitution, 
refers  to  anything,  undev  the  heavens,  but  metallic  currency? 
And,  I  add,  of  gold  and  silver  onl}^?  For  that  alone  could  a 
State  make  a  legal. tender,  when  constituted  current  coin  by 
the  regulation  or  stamp  of  the  Federal  head,  and  that  alone 
could  the  Federal  head  coin,  or  adopt,  with  a  regulated  value, 
as  the  constitutional  currency;  and  the  exclusive  thing  fit  to 
be,  and  constitutionally  pronounced  to  be,  a  legal  tender  in 
payment  of  debts.  Look  at  the  words  italicized  —  "alloy," 
*' weights,"  •'  pieces,"  "  gold  and  silver;"  what  doubt  can  there 
be,  that  a  paper  medium,  or  currency,  or  standard  of  value,  no 
matter  of  what  form  or  from  what  authority,  is  as  effectually 
excluded  from  all  idea  concerning  the  act  of  coining  as  the  skin 
of  a  beast  or  a  leaf  of  tobacco  ?    " 

Yet,  in  the  face  of  this  reasoning  and  authority,  in  contempt 
of  the  voice  of  history  that  proclaims  aloud  the  meaning  of  the 
language  in  question,  and  proclaims  that  gold  and  silver  coin 
was  the  ^'  monej^"  which  Congress  was  to  provide,  and  that 
only,  listen  to  the  language  of  the  writer  for  the  Whig  :  Quoth 
he,  "  Who  will  deny  that  Congress  ma}^  stamp  the  Treasury 
notes,  and  thus  make  them  money?"  It  is  probable  my  readers 
will  join  me  in  asking  a  division  of  the  question;  and  we  shall 
unite  in  allowing  that  Congress  may  starnp  Treasury  notes,  but 
I  surmise  we  shall  equally  join  in  utterly  denying  that  Congress 
can  thereby,  or  by  any  other  means,  make  them  money  —  i.e., 


17 


the  money  which  the  Constitution  empowered  Congress  to  coin. 
People  may.  call  a  variety  of  devices  money,  and  use  them  in 
lieu  of  mone}';  and  dictionaries  maj-  reflect  this  voluntary 
popular  language  and  conduct ;  and  they  may,  in  ji])ecial  cir- 
cumstances, and  for  certain  jieriods.  perform  the  office  of  moncj-. 
But,  is  it  a  species  of  logic  that  can  challenge  our  respect, 
which  seeks  *to  convert  a  substitute  for  a  specific  thing  into  that 
very  thing  —  that  calls  the  shadow  the  substance  —  the  repre- 
sentative the  constituent — a  promise  to  pay  payment?  Surely 
he  read^  in  vain  our  annals,  touching  constitutional  regulations 
of  money — coining  money,  establishing  a  standard  of  value  for 
commerce  and  contracts — who  does  not  see,  that  it  was  the 
special,  identical,  exclusive  end  of  them  all.  to  extinguish  and 
forever  eradicate  the  pretension  of  a  promise  to  pay  money  to 
become  itself  money ;  no  matter  by  w;honi  —  government,  or 
corporation,  or  individual — the  promise  might  be  issued.  The 
evidence  of  tliis  truth  is  scattered  broadcast  over  all  the  re- 
cords of  all  discussions  relating  to  the  subject,  indulged  by 
those  who  conti'ived,  and  those  who  adopted,  the  Constitution 
of  17S7-'0. 

Cato. 


.     :no.  vii. 

I  flatter  mj'self  those  who  have  doJie  me  the  honor  of  reading 
my  observations  thus  far,  will  require  no  more  of  reasoning  or 
authority  to  produce  an  undoubting  conviction  that,  under  the 
power  to  coin  monej',  etc.,  Congrcf^s  has  no  pretence  of  author- 
ity to  manufacture  and  emit  an}-  species  of  paper  as  money. 
For,  though  what  I  have  said,  and  the  quotations  I  have  made 
of  what  others  have  said,  applies  to. the  Constitution  of  the 
United  States,  it  would  seem  simpl}-  preposterous  to  contend 
that  the  same  words  and  phrases  in  our  Constitution  have  a 
meaning  any  wise  different  from  that  thcj'  import  in  Lincoln's 
(if,  indeed,  he  has  any  Constitution  at  all).  Certainly  the  ex- 
perience as  to  paper  money,  so  called,  which  this  generation 
has  been  able  to  add  lo  that  of  ante-revolutionarj-  times  and 
post-revolutionary  times  up  to  1789,  has  but  fortified  the  incen- 


«, 


18 


tivcs  leading  the  men  of  1787-9,  and  for  a  stronger  reason 
ought  to  lead  us  to  abhor  a  paper  currency  as  a  standard  of 
value,  or  as  "inoiiey"  in  any  sense;  nor  have  our  lessons,  taught 
by  our  experience,  brought  us  to  esteem  the  paper  promises 
to  pay,  emitted  by  a  Federal  government,  as  any  fitter  to  be 
called  money,  or  to  be  a  tender,  in  payment  of  specie  lent  and 
promised  to  be  repaid,  than  such  promises  emitted  by  a  State, 
or  a  bank  of  issue  chartered  by  it.  IS  or  do  I  think  that  Wor- 
cester's Dictionary  Avill  be  clothed  with  the  potent  dignity  of 
having  instructed  the  framei-s  or  ratifiers  of  our  Constitution, 
in  new  and  veay  mischievous  views  of  the  definition  of  com, 
coining,  money,  and  legal  tender. 

Neither  the  precise  point  I  am  considering — i.  e.,  whether  Con- 
gress can  -make  anything  but  gold  and  silver  current  coin  a.  legal 
tender  in  payment  of  debts — nor  the  exigency  of  my  argument  to 
vindicate  the  negative,  can  make  it  necessary  for  me  to  estab- 
lish the  proposition  that  (,'ongress  cannot  emit  "  bills  of  credit." 
The  reason  is  this:  It  may  be  granted  that  Congress  may 
emit  "bills  of  credit,"  and  it  may  be  true,  also,  that  people 
may  choose  to  make  them  current,  as  and  for  money,  so  long- 
as  people  have  faith  in  them  and  please  so  to  do ;  and  yet,  the 
question  will  still  remain  in  statu  quo :  Can  Congress  make 
them  a  legal  tender?  My  proposition  is  distinctly,  this:  That 
by  the  Constitutions  of  the  quondam  United  States  and  of 
the  Confederate  States,  no  govern  nient.  State  or  Federal,  can 
make  anything  but  gold  and  silver  current  coin  money;  that 
neither  government  can  make  anything  else  a  legal  tender  in 
payment  of  debts;  no  matter  whether  or  not  either  or  both 
governments  may  emit  "  bills  of  credit." 

It  niay  turn  out,  upon  a  proper  investigation,  to  Avhich  I  do 
not  now  apply  myself,  that  though  the  Congress  of  the  United 
States  could  not  constitutionally  issue  or  "  emit"  bills  of  credit, 
yet  that  the  Confederate  Congress  can.  Of  that,  hereafter.  I 
am  quite  convinced  that  it  was  an  usurpation  on  the  part  of 
the  former  to  issue  any  such  currency,  directly  or  indirectly, 
as  money,  or  with  a  view  to  perform  the  functions  of  money. 
I  am  quite  aware  there  were  various  Opinions  expressed  on 
this  subject,  both  eai'ly  and  late,  by  men  of  deservedly  promi- 
nent consideration.  Our  own  Charles  Pinckney  took  the  affirm- 
ative in  May,  1788.     He  said,  in  our  convention,  then,    "if 


19 


paper  money   should   become  neeessary,  tlie   c^eneral  ^.overn- 

r?/w    ,7T/''  '""''  of  emittin.  it;  and  CouUnental 
pape.,  well  funded    must  ever  answer  tl.e  purpose  better  than 
State  paper."     A.  J.  Dalhis,  while  Secretary  of  the  Treasury 
HI  181D,  assumed  that  Congress  had  the  power  to  emit  bills  of 
credit  "as  a  necessary  implication  from  positive  provisions" 
(said  he).     He  had  specified,  in  immediate  connection  with  this 
observation,  only  the  positive  provision  to  coin  monev      III 
admitted  that  such  a  power  had  been  exercised  only  in  a  quali- 
fied and  limited  manner-referring  to  bills  of  the  Bank  of  the 
United  States,  and  Treasury  notes  issued  during  the  war  of 
181..     Such  currency  was  declared  receivable  alone  in  payment 
to  the  United  States.     Mr.  Crawford,  Secretary  of  the  Treas- 
ury, "^  1S20   seemed  to  have  direct  reference  \o  the  observa- 
t  on  of  Mr.  Dallas  when  he  said  :  "  Coinage,  and  the  regulation 
ot  money,  have,  in   all   nations,   been   considered   one   of  the 
highest  acts  of  sovereignty.     It  may  well  be  doubted,  however 
whether  a  sovereign  1)ower  over  the  coinage  necessarily  gives 
the  nght  to  establish  a  paper  currency.     The  power  to  eltab- 
i.sh  such  a  currency  ought  not  only  to  be  unquestionable,  but 
unquestioned.     Any  doubt  about  the  legality  of  the  exercise  of 
such  an  authority  could  not  fail  to  mar  any  system  that  human 
ingenuity  could  devise." 

Alexander  Hamilton,  the  Coryphaeus  of  the  -  sappers  and 
miners     of  the  Constitution  of  the  United  States,   who  was 
Vrnnus  ^nter  par^,  Judge  Marshall  himself  occupying  a  position 
m   h.s  rear-Hamilton,  brilliant  in  intellect,  subtle  in  expe- 
dient, of  resolute  purpose,  zealous  and  persevering  for  consoli- 
'-"•'"on,  of  unblenching  courage,  never  (so  far  as  I  have  read) 
ncily  affirmed  the  right  of  Congress  to  issue  bills  of  credit- 
ic  admonished,  earnestly,  against  such  act  by  Congress,  mak- 
ng  use  of  this  remarkable  language  (vide  -Reports  on   the 
Finances,"  vol.  1,  p.  64):    "The  emitting  of  paper  money  by 
•he  authority  of  government  is  wisely  prohibited  to  the  individ- 
»ai  Stales,  by  the  National  Constitution,  and  the  spirit  of  that 
)rohibition  ought  not  to  be  disregarded   by   the  Government 
'f    he  I  nited  States.     Though  paper  emissions,  under  a  gen- 
ra    authority,   might  have  some  advantages  not   applicable, 
tid  be  free  from  some  disadvantages  which  are  applicable  to 
he  like  emissions  by  the  States  separately,  yet  they  are  of  a 


20 


nature  so  liable  to  abuse-and  it  may  even  be  affirmed  so  cer- 
taiiTof  bcin-r  abused— that  the  wisdom  of  the  government  will 
be  shown  in"  never  trusting  itself  with  the  use  of  so  seducing    , 
and   dangerous  an   expedient."      He   discovered   wisdom    and 
safety  in'  using  an  agency  to  do  indirectly  what  he  abhorred 
to  do'  directlv-/.  c^,  a  chartered  bank-which  was  to  be  based 
on  specie  and  government  stocks,  restrained  by  the  limits  ot 
Bound  trade,  and  the  liability  to  pay  specie  on  demand,  or  at  a 
fixed  day.  for  its  issues.     And  yet,  even  Hamilton  never  dared 
to  suggest,  and  a  Congress  of  Federalists  never  dared  to  ex- 
ceed   a  provision  beyond  that  of  making  such  bills  of  credit 
receivable  in    dues  to   the  Federal   government.     No  wonder 
Hamilton  clothed  himself  in  a  crafty  ambiguity  in  alluding  to 
the  power  to  issue  bills  of  credit,  or  a  paper  currency  (which 
were  equivalent  ideas  with  the  men  of  that  day).     He  knew, 
what  L  have  before  revealed,  that  the  Convention  of  '87  had 
expressly  refused  this  power  to  Congress,  by  nearly  an  unani- 
mous vote,  on  specific  motion;  and  he  knew  the  meaning  of 
that  vote,  as  thus  interpreted  by  Luther  Martin,  in  a  responsi- 
ble, deliberate  report  to  his  Legislature:  "By  our  original  Ar- 
ticles  of  Confederation,  the  Congress  have  power  to  borrow 
money  and  emit   bills  of  credit  on   the  credit  of  the  United 
States;  agreeably  to  which  was  the  report  on  this  system  as 
made  by  the  Committee  of  Detail.     AVhen  we  came  to  this  part 
of  the  report,  a  motion  was  made  to  strike  out  the  words  '  to 
emit  bills  of  credit;'  against  the  motion  we  urged  that  it  would 
be  improper  to  deprive  the  Congress  of  that  power;  that  it 
would  be  a  novelty  unprecedented  to  establish  a  government 
which  should  not  have  such  authority.     That  it  was  impossible 
to  look  into  luturity  so  far  as  to  decide  that  events  might  not 
bJvppen  that  should  render  the  exercise  of  such  a  power  abso- 
lutely   necessary;   and   that   wo   doubted   whether,   if  a   war 
should  take  place,  it  would  be  possible  for  this  country  to  de- 
fend itself  without  having  recourse  to  paper  credit,  in  which 
case  there  would  be  a  necessity  to  become  a  prey  to  our  ene- 
mies  or   violate    the    Constitution    of  our    government;    and 
that,  considering  the  administration  of  the  government  would 
be  principally  in  the  hands  of  the  wealthy,  there  could  be  little 
reason   to  fear  an  abuse  of  the  power,  or  an  unnecessary  or 
injurious  exercise  of  it.     But,  sir,  a  majority  of  the  Convention 


21 


being  wise  beyond  every  event,  and  being  willing  to  risk  any 
political  evil  rather  than  admit  thr  idea  of  a  paper  e^nissiort   in 
any  possible  ca.^.,  refused  to  trunt  this  authority  to  a  government 
on   which  they  were  lavishing  the  most  unlimiterl  powers  of 
Without  exploring  farther  this  eolhUeral,  but  not  unimportant 
taxation,"  etc.,  "  and  they  erased  that  clause  from  the  system." 
subject,  how  could  any  man  venture  to  affirm  that  the  Con 
gress  of  the  United  States  ever  had  the  authority  to  issue  a 
single  bill  of  paper  money?     It  appears  to  me  no  man  can  so 
atfirm  who  (having  proper  information)  did  not  design  to  cab- 
bage for  the   Federal  head  what  was  not  its  right /what   on 
grave,  serious  debate,  was  explicitly  denied  ;  denied  expressly 
for  the  purpose  of  extinguishing  what  was  felt  'universally  as 
a  horrible  curse,  and  was  so  in  iacl— paper  money!     It  is  plain 
now    why    Hamilton    was    so    tender-footed    in    treadin^r   this 
ground   in   17<,0,  and   why  he  still   did  not  explicitlv  yield  it 
He  meant  to  give  up  nothing  that  could-when  time  and  its 
emergencies,    when   ambiguities,    forge  tt^.i  In  ess,    or    ignorance, 
Av4ien    party    organization    and    passion,   temporary   interests, 
when  the  citadel  had  been  gradually  approached  by  the  -  sap- 
pers and   miners"   with   that  tremendous   instrument    in  mis- 
chievous hands,  the  "  necessary  and  proper"  clauses-render  it 
safe  to  claim  what  had  been  denied,  as  the  then  living  genera- 
tion knew,  but  could  not   proclaim    when   their   voices    were 
hushed.     It  is  then  proved  that  the  Congress  at  Washington 
could  not  righteously  emit  paper  money;  a  fortiori,  they  could 
not  make  it  a  legal  tender  in  payment  of  debts. 

Cato. 


No.  VIII. 


If  it  should  be  affirmed  that  a  more  plausible  argument  can 
be  framed  in  favor  of  the  power  of  our  Congress  to  make 
and  issue  "  paper  money,"  than  ever  was  or  could  be  in  behalf 
of  the  Congress  of  the  United  States,  it  is  presumed  such  argu- 
ment is  expected  to  be  drawn  from  this  provision  in  our  Con- 
stitution, to  wit:  "  The  government  established  by  this  Consti- 


tution  is  the  successor  of  the  Provisioiiiil  government  of  the 
Confederate  States  of  America,  and  all  the  laws  passed  by  the 
latter  shall  continue  in  force  until  the  same  shall  be  repealed 
or  modified;"  and  fi'om  the  fact  that  a  law  of  the  Provisional 
i^ovcrnment  existed,  partly  executed  and  in  process  of  execu- 
tion, when  the  existing  Constitution  took  elfect,  authorizing 
the  issue  of  Treasury  notes,  in  the  similitude  of  paper  money. 
Several  difficulties  lie  in  the  way  of  obtaining  any  aid  from 
this  source.  In  the  first  place,  only  specific  laws  obtained 
thereb}'  an  efficacy,  protracted  (at  the  utmost)  only  till  they 
were  exhausted  by  their  own  action  or  limitation,  and  liable 
always  to  cease  to  be  at  the  pleasure  of  Congress.  In  the 
second  place,  the  clause  quoted  delegates  no  power  whatever 
to  Congress,  except  to  terminate  or  modify  such  laws  when 
their  discretion  should  prompt  the  one  or  the  other;  and  so 
far  as  the  clause  is  concerned,  not  a  particle  of  authority  is 
delegated  to  imitate  the  example  of  the  Provisional  govern- 
ment, and  the  Federal  govei'ument  is  left  still  to  seek  for  any 
power  to  originate  and  enact  any  law  in  their  charter,  their 
power  of  attorney,  as  though  the  clause  under  consideration 
had  never  existed.  In  the  third  place,  the  governments, 
under  both  Constitutions,  were  enjoined  to  perform  the  con- 
tracts and  engagements  entered  into  by  their  respective  predQ- 
cessors,  and  the  Continental  Congress,  as  well  as  the  sej^arate 
iStates,  had  issued,  and  they  were  in  circulation,  "bills  of 
credit" — paper  money;  and  what  is  more,  various  of  such 
issues,  by  either  government,  had  been  declared  a  legal  ten- 
der in  payment  of  debts.  In  the  Iburth  place,  the  Provisional 
government  never  made  any  of  its  paper  issues  such  a  legal 
tender,  and,  therefoi'e,  if  its  legislation  respecting  them  should 
"continue  in  force"  to  the  end  of  time,  they  could  never  be- 
come such  a  tender,  unless  our  Congress  could  find,  in  some 
other  clause  of  the  Constitution,  a  power  to  make  them  so. 
This,  of  course,  throws  wholly  out  of  consideration  the  clause 
above  cited  in  this  discussion. 

I  surmise,  that  since  the  advocates  of  making  the  Treasury 
notes  a  legal  tender  in  payment  of  debts  must  be  driven  from 
every  other  position  by  what  I  have  already  said,  and  by  what 
can  be  said  in  addition,  the}^  will  resort  to  the  provision,  em- 
powering Congress  ''  to  make  all  laws  which  shall  be  necessary 


28 


(md  proper"  to  cjirry  into  effect  any  power  s])eci!illy  delegated 
to  the  Confederate  government,  or  any  department  or  officer 
thereof. 

Every  one,  who  is  likely  to  consider,  with  a  view  to  ascer- 
tain and  follow  the  truth,  the  subject  I  am  discussing,  knows 
but  too  Avell  that  this  same  provision  in  the  Constitution  we 
have  abrogated  was  made  by  the  crafty,  the  ignorant,  the  per- 
verted, the  ambitious,  the  corrupt,  banded  together  in  a  cru- 
sade against  reserved  rights,  and  against  the  Constitution  of 
the  United  States  —  Pandora's  Box,  without  Hope  at  the  bot- 
tom. It  was  the  armory  from  which  they  drew  the  fatal 
Aveapons  that  extinguished  the  ligaments  and  vitality  of  the 
Union  of  '89,  and  introduced  those  infernal  scenes  that  are 
now  before  our  eyes.  I  have  no  design  to  enter  at  large  into 
the  unlimited  field  of  dissertation  which  this  topic  opens  to 
anybody  M'ho  pleases  to  cultivate  it;  though  I  shall  occupy  it 
to  a  very  restricted  degree.  But  I  warn  my  countrymen  that 
the  gigantic  war  now  in  full  and  horrible  blast,  into  which  we 
have  been  driven  by  the  jnost  accursed  race  (who  have  the 
power  and  the  opportunity  to  throw  otf  their  canting  hypoc- 
risy, and  indulge  their  propensity  to  robbery,  desolation,  re- 
venge, and  slaughtei'),  which  has  ever  afflicted  mankind,  I 
repeat,  that  this  gigantic  war  presents  the  fittest  atmosphere 
to  disseminate  those  poisons  from  the  same  Pandora's  Box  that 
have  proved  so  fatal  to  another  Union  and  another  Constitu- 
tion. Our  present  circumstances  continually  present  and  rein- 
force that  fatal  plea  of  necessity,  which  has  so  often  been  made 
the  panoply  of  stupendous  iniquity,  and  is  calculated  to  seduce 
and  drug  into  drowsiness  the  well-meaning,  but  too  simple  and 
confiding;  indeed,  they  abstract  us  all,  more  or  less,  from  the 
"lesser  points  of  the  law"  —  from  the  cautious  scanning  of  evil 
beginnings,  which  quiet  times  permit  and  encourage,  and  fix 
us  upon  the  contemplation  of  that  stupendous  panorama  of 
campaigns,  sieges,  and  battles  daily  unwinding  before  us,  ex- 
hibiting, as  chief  spectacles,  blood  and  carnage,  devastation 
and  universal  wailing,  never  paralleled;  these  circumstances 
enable  the  "  sappers,  and  miners"  of  the  (Constitution  to  work 
<liligently,  undisturbed,  in  the  .dark,  as  it  were  ;  to  sow  in  a 
fruitful  hoil  the  seeds  of  irrepsirable  mischief^;  and  the  still 
small  voice  is  unheard  amid  the  din  and  tumult.     In  such  cir- 


24 


cumstances,  then,  I  conjure  those  who  can  bend  themselves 
to  the  duty  to  scan  the  evil  omens  tliat  portend  calamity  — 
tirmi}'  to  resist  the  entering  wedge  that  otherwise  ma}"  rivo 
asunder  the  political  fabric  so  recently  contrived. 

I  am  wholly  at  a  loss  to  conceive  the  specifically  granted 
power  to  which  that  of  declaring  Treasury  notes  a  legal  tender 
in  payment  of  debts  is  '''a  necessary  and  proper"  incident.  I 
have  shown  (if  1  have  established  anything)  that  it  has  no  con- 
nection Avith  the  power  to  "coin  monej'" — nay,  that  the  power 
to  issue  paper  money  at  all  has  no  such  connection.  It  is 
neither  necessary  nor  proper  that  such  notes  shall  be  a  legal 
tender  in  payment  of  debts — nay,  that  they  should  be  issued 
at  all — to  carry  into  effect  the  poAver  to  "borrow  money  on  the 
credit  of  the  Confederate  States."  Why.  it  is  too  plain  to  war- 
rant argument,  or  to  adniit  ditfcrence  of  opinion,  that  when 
government  or  individual  exchanges  a  note  promising  io  pay 
money,  the  transaction  imports  the  very  reverse  of  borrowing 
mone3^  Such  a  transaction  is  meant  and  operates  to  procure 
the  commodity  desired,  without  the  use  of  money  at  all  on  the 
occasion — it  is  its  explicit  purpose  and  effect  to  supersede  the 
borrowing  or  use  of  money.  This  is  exemplified  by  the  action 
of  any  government  which  has  ever  resorted  to  the  expedient  of 
issuing  "bills  of  credit"  in  the  shape  of  paper  money.  Treasury 
notes.  Witness  the  war  of  li^l2,  between  the  United  States  and 
Britain,  and  that  which  is  now  flagrant.  Different  statutes 
have  been  passed  :  one  to  authorize  the  borrowing  of  money ; 
the  other  the  issuing  of  Treasury  notes — operations  totally  dis- 
tinct, and  so  well  understood  to  he  by  those  wdio  performed 
them.  When  a  government  obtains  a  mule,  a  wagon,  or  one 
hundred  bushels  of  corn,  anything  it  buys  for  certain  promises 
to  pay  money  at  a  future  time,  it  is  not  short  of  absurdity  to 
say  that  thereby  any  money  is  paid  or  borrowed.  What  follows? 
This:  that  even  the  issuing  and  use  of  a  paper  currency,  being 
a  promise  to  pay  money,  has  no  affinity  or  relation  whatever  to 
the  act  of  "borrowing  money;"  that  this  resort  of  government 
is,  therefore,  wholly  excluded  from  the  categor}'  of  any  powers 
that  may  be  incident,  as  necessary  and  pi'oper,  or  either,  to  the 
principal  power,  "to  borrow  money;"  and,  a  fortiori,  the  mak- 
ing such  currencJJ'  a  legal  tender  in  payment  of  debts,  it  is  not 
within  the  limits  of  a  sane  imagination  to  connect,  by  the  liga- 


25 


ment  of  a  hair,  with  incidental  powers,  as  to  borrowinc:  moneJ^ 
Then  will  we  be  referred  to  the  power  "to  declare  war  —  to 
raise  and  maintain  armies — to  provide  and  maintain  a  navy"  ? 
Without  stopping  to  argue  so  plain  a  point,  as  that  Treasury 
notes  have  nothing  to  do  with  declaring  war,  I  shall  assume, 
for  the  sake  of  brevity,  that  they  may  be  convenient,  or,  for 
the  sake  of  argument,  ''  necessary  and  proper"  (I  do  not  mean 
to  admit  it)  to  "maintain"  an  array  and  navy;  still,  T  utterly 
deny  that  it  is  necessary  and  ]iroper  to  make  them  a  legal  ten- 
der in  payment  of  debts,  in  order  to  carry  into  effect  such 
powers.  Throughout  our  whole  political  history  lis  one  of  the 
United  States,  and  since  Ave  renounced  that  relation,  armies 
and  navies — the  former  upon  a  most  magniticcnt  scale — have 
been  "raised,"  "provided,"  "maintained,"  without  declaring 
Federal  paper  money  a  legal  tender  in  payment  of  debts,  or  an}- 
pretence  to  the  power  to  do  so,  up  to  a  very  recent  period. 
The  most  zealous  consolidationist — the  bitterest  contemner  and 
reviler  of  the  reserved  powers — the  most  ardent  admirer  of  an 
imperial  central  power,  to  be  erected  on  the  ruins  of  States 
rights — the  busiest  architects  of  such  a  structure,  from  Alexan- 
der Hamilton  and  his  co-workers  down  to  the  Lucifers  and 
lesser  devils  of  the  dynasty  of  Abraham  Lincoln,  none  ever 
ventured  upon  such  arrogant  assumjition  of  power.  These  lat- 
ter have  indeed  done  so,  having  totally  upset  and  trampled  into 
shreds  their  Constitution,  having  most  naturally'  invaded  the 
sanctity  of  contracts,  toppled  over  the  standard  of  value,  and 
recklessly  introduced  into  their  affairs  generall}*  the  chaos  and  * 
confusion  of  the  infernal  regions.  Is  this  an  example  fit  to  be 
cited  or  imitated  this  side  the  Susquehanna?  Then,  if  these 
Y>owers,  now  under  review,  have  been  successfully  "  carried 
into  effect,"  and  repeatedly  so  executed,  without  declaring 
Treasury  notes  a  legal  tender  for  debts — if  (as  we  all  rejoice  to 
know)  we  ourselves  are  gloriouslj'^  executing  these  powers  (so 
far,  at  least,  as  armies  are  concerned),  without  giving  to  Trea- 
sury notes  the  disputed  attribute,  what  more  is  wanting  to 
complete  the  demonstration,  that  to  give  them  such  an  attri- 
bute—  the  attribute  of  gold  and  silver  current  coin  exclu- 
sively—  is  not  a  "necessary  and  proper"  incident  to  these 
powers  ?  Cato. 


26 


No.  IX. 

Suppose  the  advocates  of  the  scheme  of  lifting  Treasury 
notes  to  the  di;:^uit3^  of  specie — the  currency  of  the  Constitu- 
tion— should  resort  to  the  power  to  ''regulate  commerce  with 
foreign  nations,  among  the  several  States  and  with  the  Indian 
tribes,"  and,  for  aught  I  know,  it  may  be  the  favorite  pedestal 
upon  which  they  may  place  their  hopes.  I  have  to  answer: 
Mrst:  Treasury  notes,  whether  a  legal  tender  or  not,  are  in  no 
wise  "  necessary  and  proper  "  to  the  existence  of  commerce  at 
all,  either  with  foreign  nations  or  among  the  several  States. 
Indeed,  such  an  instrumentality,  so  far  as  it  disj^laces  the  con- 
stitutional currenc}^  (and  it  always  does  so,  more  or  less,  and 
now  totall}'  supplants  it),  is  a  hinderance  to  commerce,  and  may 
become  a  very  vampire,  that  sucks  up  its  life-blood.  It  never 
can  aid  it,  and  never  has  aided  it.  Second :  To  make  such  cur- 
rency a  legal  tender  in  payment  of  debts,  would  embarrass, 
})erhaps  destroy, /orcii/n  commerce.  If  we  are  not  to  discredit 
the  testimony  of  our  ancestors,  of  the  constitutional  and  revo- 
lutionary era,  paper  money  did  have  that  effect  -between  1783 
and  1789 ;  and,  indeed,  the  like  effect  during  that  period  and 
before,  on  the  commerce  ^'^  among  the  several  States."  For  it 
must  be  remembered,  that  certain  issues  of  paper  money  by 
the  Continental  Congress  as  well  as  the  several  States,  or  at 
least  various  of  them,  were  made  a  legal  tender  in  payment  of 
debts;  and  the  iniquities  of  Rhode  Island  in  this  field  of  fraud 
Und  public  robbery  gained  for  that  contemptible  State,  always 
a  pestilential  nuisance,  an  infamous  notoriety,  which  is  pub- 
lished and  declared  in  all  the  debates  on  the  Constitution  of 
the  United  States  that  are  extant.  Third:  It  would  afflict 
commerce  with  the  very  evil  which  the  specie  provisions  of  the 
Constitution  were  intended  to  cui'e  and  remove.  Fourth  s  If 
Treasury  notes  are  not  only  not  "  necessary  and  pi'oper,"  but 
baneful  to  commerce  itself,  much  less  is  such  a  currency  neces- 
sary and  proper,  or  even  convenient  or  appropriate,  for  its 
REGULATION — bccausc  it  is  one  thing  to  regulate  the  manner  in 
which  commerce  shall  be  conducted,  and  quite  another  to  pre- 
scribe the  medium  of  exchanges  which  commerce  shall  adopt, 
licsides,  the  Constitution  prescribes  the  medium  of  exchanges, 
and   the  "  money "  that  shall  effect  them,  where  payment  of 


27 


debts  is  to  be  made,  to  wit,  "gold  and  silver  cuiTcnt  coin." 
Fifth :  The  argument  that  seeks  root  in  the  power  to  regulate 
commerce,  proves  too  much  — "  o'erleaps  itself,  and  fiills  on 
t'  other  side."  The  poAver  is,  "  to  regulate  commerce  with  for- 
eign nations  among  the  several  States,  and  with  the  Indian 
tribes."  Now,  if  Treasury-  notes  are  prescribed  as  necessary 
and  proper  to  the  execution  of  this  power,  and  they  must  also 
be  made  a  legal  tender  to  execute  it  effoctually,  then  we  have 
Congress  regulating  commerce  within  a  State — the  internal  com- 
mei'ce  of  a  State — a  bald  and  unmitigated  usurpation ;  and 
then,  likewise,  we  should  bave  this  e^raordinary  fruit  of  the 
clause  granting  implied  powei's,  to  wh:  first  implication  — 
Treasurj^  notes  as  necessary  and  proper  for  executing  the  spe- 
cific power;  second  implication — attaching  to  them  a  quality 
to  be  a  legal  tender  in  payment  of  debts,  in  order  to  make  the 
Treasury  notes  effectual  for  their  purpose,  which  is  mounting 
an  incidental  power  upon  another  incidental  poAver,  piling 
Pelion  upon  Ossa,  and  then,  perhaps,  Ave  shall  be  treated  to  a 
bill  of  pains  and  penalties  if  we  scruple  to  admit,  and  act 
accordingly,  that  a  promise  to  pay  specie  is  specie,  no  matter 
Avhether  the  promissor  be  government  or  individual,  solvent  or 
bankrupt.  Where,  upon  the,  basis  of  such  conception,  shall  be 
the  end  of  that  line  of  construction,  that  shall  string  sliadow 
upon  shadow,  implication  upon  implication,  until  the  incidental 
clause  of  the  Constitution  sball  become  the  Aaron's  rod  of  tbat 
instrument,  as  it  did  become  in  the  Constitution  Ave  have  abro- 
gated, and  gorge  itself  by  swallowing  up  every  otber  poAver, 
and  Avith  tltem  the  chartered  rights  of  States  and  citizen  ? 

It  appears  to  me  that  temerity  itself  Avill  not  resort  to  any 
other  specific  power  than  one  or  the  other  of  those  I  have  men- 
tioned as  having  the  Slightest  pretension  to  draw  in  its  train, 
as  a  necessary  and  proper  incident  to  its  effectual  execution, 
tbat  of  making  paper  money  at  all ;  or,  if  made,  of  making  it  a 
legal  tender  in  payment  of  debts. 

'  Hear  what  Mr.  Jefferson  has  said  as  to  the  proper  rule  of 
constructing  the  clause  delegating  the  ]>ower  to  use  means 
•'  necessary  and  proper."  He  Avrote,  in  February,  1791,  under 
the  gravest  oflScial  responsibility,  at  the  instance  of  General 
Wasliington,  Avhen  he  Avas  called  on  to  consider  tlie  charter  of 
the  first  bank  by  the  Congress  of  the  United  States;  and  ho 


wrote  on  the  occasion  of  the  first  grand  conflict  between  the 
consolidationists  (the  Federalists  of  that  day)  and  those  who 
vindicated  the  reserved  rights  of  the  States,  or  of  the  people. 
In  his  model  State  jjaper,  with  the  terseness  and  vigor  of  style 
that  was  peculiarly  his,  he  says :  "  The  Constitution  allows 
only  the  means  which  are  '  necessary,'  not  those  which  are 
merely  '  convenient,'  for  effecting  the  enumerated  powers.  If 
such  a  latitude  of  construction  be  allowed  to  this  phrase  as  to 
give  any  non-enumerated  power,  it  will  go  to  every  one  ;  for 
there  is  no  one  which  iugenuity  may  not  torture  into  a  conven- 
ience in  some  way  or  other,  to  some  one  of  so  long  a  list  of  enumer- 
ated powers.  It  would  swallow  up  all  the  delegated  powers, 
and  reduce  the  whole  to  one  phrase.  Therefore  it  was  that  the 
Constitution  restrained  them  to  the  necessary  means — that  is  to 
say,  to  those  means  without  which  the  grant  of  power  Avould 
be  nugatory." 

I  reproduce  these  words  of  sober  wisdom  from  one  of  the 
first  minds  of  the  revolutionary'-  era,  and  (I  think)  of  atiy  era, 
liecauso  they  are  well  weighed  and  well  grounded ;  and  I  also 
believe  the  instruction  to  be  drawn  from  them  was  never  more 
needed  than  it  is  now,  and  by  no  race  of  politicians  (statesmen 
are  scarce)  more  than  those  who  now  bear  sway. 

Cato. 


No.  X. 

At  a  time  when  a  serious  and  unimpassioned  discussion 
would  be  heeded,  other  considerations  of  a  more  general  na- 
ture would  be  deemed  very  potent  obstacles  in  the  way  of 
those  who  would  engraft  the  power  of  Congress  to  constitute 
its  paper  money  a  legal  tender  in  payment  of  debts,  upon  the 
clause  of  the  Constitution  delegating  the  authority  to  use 
auxiliary  means,  "  necessary  and  proper "  to  carry  into  effect 
primaiy,  specified  powers.     I  suggest  some  of  such  obstacles. 

No  primary,  substantial,  sovereign  power,  not  enumerated 
as  granted  in  the  Constitution,  can  be  implied,  under  the  head 
of  a  mere  means  to  an  end.     Since,  then,  it  is  not  competent  to 


29 


a  government  to  execute  an  end,  it  is  a  necessary  result,  that 
it  can  employ  no  means,  no  mere  auxiliary  measure,  tending 
to  attain  that  end.     It  will  not  be  denied,  that  to  make  or  pre- 
scribe the  money  of  a  people  —  the  standard  of  values  in  com- 
uaerce  —  the  solvent  of  debts  —  is  a  substantive,  fundamental, 
sovereign  power.     I  trust  I  liave  made  it  too  manifest  for  con- 
troversy, that  Congress  can  make  or  prescribe  no  inoney,  but. 
gold  and  silver  coin,  by  virtue  of  an}-  express,  specific  grant 
of  power.      No    lawj-er   will    question    the    maxim,    expressio 
unius,  exdusio  alterhts ;   where  one  mode  of  doing  a  thing   is 
prescribed  to  an  agent,  specificall}',  every  other  mode  of  doing 
it    is   excluded.      The   only   mode  prescribed  to  Congress   in 
which  it  can   make  ^' 'money,"   is  by  "coining"  it.     This  has 
been  shown  to  apply  solely  to  gold  and  silver,  or  the  "  precious 
metals"  —  to  "specie."     The  en-i  prescribed  to  Congress  is  to 
make  this  money,  or  adopt  what  another  has  made  —  that  is, 
<  to  make,  or  adopt,  gold  and  silver  current  coin.     Can  anj-  well 
organized  mind,  one  capable  of  comprehending  logical  or  legal 
congruity  in  argument,  and  offended  at  any  process  of  thought 
that  presents  disjointed  and  incongruous  discussion,  conceive 
the  idea   as  legitimate  —  that  by  implication   merely  from  the 
clause  under  consideration,  Congress  can  effect  an  end,  a  great 
and  sovereign  end;  can  make  that  money  which  the  Constitu- 
tion excludes  as  mone}'  ? 

Again:  We  shall  all  agree  that  the  thing  which  is  money 
wnll  pay  a  debt,  and,  of  course,  must  be  a  legal  tender  for  a 
debt.  Now,  the  Confederate  Constitution  does  not  prohibit  a 
State  from  issuing  "  bills  of  credit,"  or  paper  money,  and  it 
does  not  grant  that  power  to  Congress.  Yet  the  Constitution 
does  expressly  prohibit  a  State  to  make  anything  but  sj>ecie  a 
legal  tender  in  payment  of  debts  (the  words  are  "  gold  and 
silver  current  coin").  Is  this  not  a  demonstration  that  paper 
money  is  not  the  money  of  the  Constitution,  and  is  not  the 
thing  a  creditor  for  dollars  loaned  is  obliged  to  take,  or  can  bo 
made  to  take,  until  vaulting  tyranny  shall  trample  upon  the 
ashes  of  the  Constitution,  and  of  private  rights  y 

Still  farther:  If  Congress  be  allowed  to  imply  this  power  (as 
to  a  legal  tender),  it  gains,  b}-  the  political  ledgerdemain  of 
construction,  the  power  not  raercl}'  to  "  imjiair,"  but  to  vio- 
late aod  extinguish  the  obligation  of  contracts  I     If  the  people 


30 


of  these  Confederate  States  meant  to  invest  any  government 
with  such  a  power,  I,  for  one,  pronounce  that  they  are  incapa- 
ble of  self-g'overnment ;  that  they  know  not,  and  feel  not,  the 
elenientar}'  maxims  of  political  wisdom,  of  sound  morals,  or  of 
plain  honesty.  They  would,  thereby,  allow  a  man,  who  had 
received,  upon  loan,  or  by  purchase,  a  dollar,  or  a  dollar's 
Avorth,  of  his  neighbor,  or  of  anj^body  or  corporation,  to  pay  it 
by  something  which  promised  to  pay  a  dollar  at  some  future 
time,  certain  or  uncertain,  or  (it  may  be)  on  some  future  con- 
tingency; though  his  obli(jatio7i  was,  in  express  terms,  to  pay, 
at  a  time  fixed,  as  manj^  dollars  as  he  got ;  and  though  (it 
might  be)  ha  had  been  indulged  far  beyond  the  terms  of  his 
contract,  until  causes,  for  which  neither  debtor  nor  creditor 
could  be  held  responsible,  made  it  difficult  for  him  to  produce 
the  dollar.  And  because  it  was  inconvenient,  or  involved  some 
sacrifice,  perhaps,  to  keep  his  contract,  why,  he  must  be  ab- 
solved from  it;  or,  by  authority  of  government,  tender  a  stone 
when  he  promised  bread.  It  is  plain  to  any  understanding, 
that  when  any  currency,  substituted  for  money,  has  depre- 
ciated from  any  cause  whatever,  the  man  who  has  anything 
to  sell  receives  from  the  purchaser  a  price  enhanced  in  precise 
pi'oportion  to  the  depreciation  of  the  currency  received  —  it 
being  assumed  that  the  relation  of  demand  "and  supply  remains 
the  same.  If  the  currency  thus  received  be  dej^reciated  fifty 
per  cent,  below  the  standai'd  of  specie,  the  debtor,  who  so  sells 
his  commodity  at  the  enhanced  price  of  fifty  per  cent.,  would 
be  enabled  to  pay  a  debt  he  owed  for  sjiecie  borrowed,  or  for 
property  bought,  at  the  specie  standard  of  value,  with  one  half 
the  sum  of  money  that  he  received  from  his  creditor — if  he  be 
allowed  to  force  such  a  currency  upon  him.  ISTow  such  rule 
of  justice,  such  a  precept  of  morals,  the  people  have  absolutely 
forbidden  to  be  inscribed  or  inculcated  by  their  several  State 
Legislatures ;  they  have  not  expressly  vested  silch  a  monstrous 
power  for  mischief  in  the  Confederate  Legislature — though  they 
have  a  commanding  voice  in  the  former,  and  only  a  factional 
one  in  the  latter.  Can  it  be  believed  that,  by  implication,  this 
people  conceded  to  a  paper  currency,  to  be  issued  by  the  lat- 
ter, a  dignity  and  efficacy,  denied  to  that  which  was  exclu- 
sively their  own,  which  is  wholly  under  their  control,  and 
which,  by  our  Confederate  Constitution,  each  State. has  an  un-. 


31 


challenged  right  to  issue.     Hear  what  Mr.  Madison   says  in 
the  44th  No.  "  Federalist": 

*'  Bills  of  attainder,  ex  post  facto  laws,  and  laws  impairing 
the  obligation  of  contracts,  are  contrary  to  the  first  principles  of 
the  social  compact,  and  to  every  principle  of  sound  legislation. 
The  two  former  are  expressh'  proliibited  by  the  declarations 
prefixed  to  some  of  the  State  Constitutions,  and  all  of  them  are 
prohibited  by  the  spirit  and  scope  of  these  fundamental  char- 
ters. Our  own  experience  has  taught  us,  nevertheless,  that 
additional  fences  against  these  dangers  ought  not  to  be 
omitted.  Very  properly-,  therefore,  have  the  Convention 
added  this  constitutional  bulwark  in  favor  of  personal  secu- 
rity and  private  rights;  and  I  am  much  deceived,  if  they  have 
not,  in  so  doing,  as  faithfully  consulted  the  genuine  sentiments 
us  the  undoubted  interests  of  their  constituents.  The  sober 
people  of  America  are  wear}"  of  the  fluctuating  policy  which 
has  diverted  the  public  councils.  They  have  seen  with  regret, 
and  with  indignation,  that  sudden  changes  and  legislative  in- 
terferences, in  cases  affecting  personal  rights,  become  jobs  in 
the  hands  of  influential  speculators,  and  snares  to  the  more 
industrious  and  less  informed  part  of  the  community.  They 
have  seen,  too,  that  one  legislative  interference  is  but  the  link 
of  a  long  chain  of  repetitions ;  everj'  subsequent  interference 
being  naturally  produced  b}"  the  effects  of  the  preceding. 
They  xQvy  rightly  infer,  therefore,  that  some  thorougli  reform 
is  wanting,  which  will  banish  speculation  on  public  measures, 
insjiire  a  general  prudence  and  industry,  and  give  a  regular 
course  to  the  business  of  society." 

Says  Story  (referring  to  the  same  subject) : 

"  Severe  as  were  the  calamities  of  the  war,  tlie  pressure  of 
them  was  far  less  mischievous  than  this  slow  but  progressive 
destruction  of  all  our  resources,  all  our  industry,  and  all  our 
credit." 

And  shall  such  a  tremendous  power  as, that  to  violate  the 
obligation  of  contracts  be  seized,  by  the  Federal  Legislature, 
by  the  process  of  implication  working  such  calamities  as  are 
above  set  out,  in  its  fitful  but  ever  unjust  spoilation  of  private 
covenanted  rights?  Shall  the  long  aftd  busy  finger  of  the 
Federal  power  be  introduced  into  the  State  courts,  and  ])rivate 
contracts  of  A,  B,  and  C,  and  thus  by  implication  of  authority 


32 


to  force  a  fraud  and  a  falsehood  into  the  plain  language  of  a 
contract?  Is  the  same  poison  administered  by  one  doctor  any- 
more acceptable  than  when  another  does  the  same  office? 

Cato. 

'0 


No.  XI. 

In  one  special  way  (and  I  do  not  approve  that)  the  Confeder- 
ate Congress  niaj^  interfere  with* the  common  law  relations  of 
debtor  and  creditor;  and  that'  is_,  by  "passing  uniform  laws  on 
the  subject  of  bankruptcies."  Although  I  hap2:)en  to  know  that 
one  of  the  Confederate  judges,  now  in  office,  under  appointment 
by  the  President  and  confirmation  by  the  Provisional  Congress, 
stoutlj^  insisted  that  the  Congress  ought  to  have  the  power  to 
pass  laws  impairing  the  obligation  of  contracts,  and  although  I 
believe  he  would  sustain  sucjti  laws  to-day,  and  although  I  feci?' 
there  would  be  many  of  a^Z  former  party  divisions  in  the  valley 
of  the  Mississippi,  and  probably  elsewhere,  ready  to  echo  such 
a  doctrine,  yet  I  Veaiture  to  defy  them  to  surmount' the  obsta- 
cles I  have  alread}"  thrown  in  their  way  (unless,  like  the  writers 
and  orators  jvJto  have  started  my  pen,  they  go  lor  a  measure 
"  constitutional  or  not  constitutional  "),  and  I  throw  in  their 
path  the  insuperable  obstacle  "which  the  very  clause  of  the 
Constitution,  abov-e  partially  quoted,  supplies.     Eead  it  in  full: 

"To  establish  uiMjIprm  laws  (^n  the  subject  of  bankruptcies, 
throughout  th^  Confederate  Siates,  but  no  law  of  Congress  shall 
'discharge  any  debt,  contracted  before  the  passage  of  the  same." 

This  is  enough  for  any- man  \^HlO  does  not  go  for  his  scheme 
of  €he  hour,  ''constitutional  or  not  constitutional." 

Now,  let  u,8  grant,  for  the  nwment,  that  Congress  do  make  the 
Confederate  paper  money  a  legjg,l  tender  in  payment-of  debts, 
and  that  such  a  mandate.be  rtot  overthrown  by  the  judiciary 
(and  I  b,elieve  the  •I'resident  can  find  a  judiciary  who  would  not 
overthrow  it,  but  he  is  not  likely  to  find  theni  on  the  benches  of 
the  States),  -wjjiat  then?  It  i's  granted  that  the  creditor  (mainly 
those  very  banka  which  have  yielded  their  field  of  circulation  to 
the  g(!!%etnmenty  and,  th(arefore,th.oir'- earnings)  is  despoiled  of 


3S 


his  just  debt  to  an  amount  in  proportion  to  the  depreciation  of 
the  currency  forced  upon  him  below  the  standard  of  that  wliich 
he  lent.  But  have  the  great  public  been  benefited  ?  Is  the 
tax-paying  wealth  of  the  population  ingreased,  or  their  wealth 
in  an}'  sense  ?  Have  "  the  first  principles  of  the  social  com- 
pact" —  "every  principle  of  sound  legislation" — escaped  a 
stab  ?  Is  the  paper  currency  fixed  upon  the  basis  of  par  value 
witb  current  coin?  By  no  means.  Though  Congress  shout  its 
legislative  mandates  until  it  grows  hoarse,  the  laws  of  trade 
and  commerce  will  ever  prevail;  until  by  foul  and  foolish  legis- 
lation faith,  trade,  commerce,  shall  be  all  extinguished.  A  vol- 
ume of  laws  intended  to  fence  around  a  paper  currency,  issued 
by  any  government  whatever,  can  give  it  no  value  extra-terri- 
torially — I  mean  in  foreign  transactions.  Nor  can  such  a  for- 
midable mass  of  legislation  compel  or  induce  the  man  who  has 
a  hog  to  sell  to  take  the  currenc}'  for  his  hog,  unless  he  pleases; 
and  he  will  not  please,  unless  he  places  on  his  hog  a  price 
enhanced  proportionate  to  the  depreciation  of  the  currency 
tendered.  ■* 

Then  the  only  practical  eftects  of  such  legislation,  as  the 
legal  tender  men  advocate,  is  this  :  The  govenjment  degrades 
itself  by  perpetrating  the  grossest  injustice  between  man  and 
man  :  the  debtor,  who  converts  his  commodities  into  the  depre- 
ciated currency,  gains  a  temporar}'  convenience  and  advantage 
to  the  permanent  injury  of  his  creditor;  the  government  fails, 
at  last,  to  bolster  up  w^hat  no  legislation  can  sustain;  8pecula- 
tors  upon  public  measures  and  individual  igiiOrance  or  neces- 
sity, swarm  and  rejoice  in  the  cornint  atmos2)lfCre  thttt  legisla- 
tion, knavish  or  foolish,  or  both,  as  the  case  may  be,  has 
created;  we  have  that  chaos  come  ^.ain,  of  the'memorable  era 
of  "Continental  money"  and  "State  issues,"  \\4iich  our  ances- 
tors have  taxed  their  abilities  to  pictupe  to  us  in  hideous  colors, 
to  the  end  that  wq  might  be  profited  by  the  warnings  of  wis- 
dom, confirmed  by  the  experience^'of  the  fiery  furnace;  and 
we  shall  prove  deaf  to  its  thunder-tbncs.  Such  is  iq  be  the 
finale  of  the  wild  scheme  of  those  who  havo^Moceasioned  thoee 
articles,  if  we  shall  become -the  unhappy  victims  ^f  th^pir 
advice.  :   .  »         -" 

The  tenderness  which  has  so, often  been  professed  by  legis||^ 
live  orators  for  debtors,  as  a  class,  has  ev^  been  suspicious  to 


*!■ 


34 


my  apprehension.  I  have  been  in  the  category  of  both  debtor 
and  creditor — sometimes  unable  to  pay  in  the  former  character, 
and  not  paid  in  the  latter.  But,  having  long  been  in  a  situation 
to  have  an  instructed  judgment,  I  cannot  call  to  my  recollec- 
tion a  single  case  in  which  a  creditor  wilfully  and  deliberately 
persecuted  an  honest  insolvent.  Such  cases  there,  no  doubt,' 
have  been;  within  the  sphere  of  my  experience,  they  must  have 
been  exceptions  only  to  the  general  rule.  I  must,  therefore, 
think  that  the  oratory  (and  the  legislation  it  has  produced),  to 
which  I  refer,  has  been  the  voice  rather  of  the  demagogue  than 
the  statesman — of  agrarianism  than  of  wisdom.  However  that 
may  be,  the  debtor  does  not  need  the  benefit  of  that  legislation 
which  enables  him  to  pay  a  dollar  with  fifty  cents  (in  the  shape 
of  a  promise  to  pay),  by  reason  of  a  rapacious  appetite  to 
devour  him  on  the  part  of  his  creditor,  for  the  latter  is  re- 
strained (in  our  State  certainly,  and  I  believe  in  all  the  rest) 
by  "  stop  laws."  Whether  such  enactments  be  constitutional 
or  not,  they  have  been  acquiesced  in ;  and,  therefore,  a  congres- 
sional scheme  to  enable  the  debtor  to  convert  a  piece  of  paper 
into  a  dollar,  and  thus  cheat  his  creditor,  under  the  august 
authority  of  the  legislative  panoply,  is  not  called  for  by  the 
tenderest  regard  for  even  the  pet  class  of  animated  orators — 
the  dear  lovers  of  the  people.  Under  the  stop  laws,  as  they 
are  actually  received,  the  debtor,  who  has  his  own  estate  proper 
in  enjoyment,  as  well  as  such  as  he  has  borrowed  from  his 
creditor,  and  can't  be  disturbed  by  the  latter,  as  to  either — 
who  is  lord  of  all  he  surveys — does  not  seem  to  need  any  fur- 
ther legislative  barrier  against  Shylock  himself.  Besides,  a 
debtor  to-day  may  be  a  creditor  to-morrow ;  and  then  let  him 
remember  "the  poisoned  chalice  may  be  commended  to  his  own 
lips."  Uato. 


No.  XII. 

The  currency  of  the  Confederate  government  has  utterly 
supplanted  gold  and  silver.  Practically,  nothing  else  can  be 
had  as  money.  A  creditor  is  obliged  to  take  this  or  nothing. 
It  is  the  only  medium  of  exchange.     Those  who  depend  wholly 


36 


upon  income  for  the  necessaries  of  life  —  and  they  are  legion 
— the  most  helpless  part  of  the  community  —  widows  and 
orphans — those  who  live  on  salaries  —  those  who,  in  the  de- 
cline and  feebleness  of  life,  have  invested  all  thej^  have  in 
stocks  or  private  loans  —  are  obliged  to  take  and  offer  the  Con- 
federate currency.  It  is  depreciated  (no  matter  from  Avhat 
cause),  and  the}^  have  to  pay,  for  everj- thing  they  get,  the  en- 
hanced price  equivalent  to  the  depreciation.  Isnot  this  enough 
of  burden  for  those  classes  to  bear,  placed  upon  their  backs  by 
the  debtor,  who  is  driven  to  do  so  by  the  action  of  the  govern- 
ment— under  its  necessities,  be  it  granted  ?  It  would  be,  if 
the  power  existed,  but  a  wanton  spoliation  of  those  classes  of 
people  to  compel  them  to  receive  for  the  principal  of  their 
loans  any  currency  but  that  they  lent.  It  is  not  a  time  for 
reinvestments;  commerce,  external,  does  not  exist;  trade,  in- 
ternal, is  circumscribed ;  credit  is  placed  in  the  condition  of 
extremest  doubt  and  hazard  by  the  casualties  of  gigantic  war; 
banks  are,  in  a  measure,  suffocated,  because,  by  their  patriotic 
acquiescence  and  active  co-operation,  the  government  at  Rich- 
mond occupies  by  its  currency,  already  in  plethoric  amount, 
the  entire  field  that  was  formerl}'  theirs ;  and  that  enterprise, 
which  calls  for  and  exercises  the  moneyed  capital  of  the  coun- 
try, is  paralyzed  by  that  all-enguiphing  cause  which  summons 
to  the  defence  of  the  country  every  energy  in  it.  It  would, 
therefore,  be  iniquitous,  upon  grounds  of  abstract  right,  and 
independent  of  constitutional  barriers,  to  compel  a  creditor, 
Avho  does  not  demand  that  currency  which  is  his  due,  or  any 
part  of  it,  to  take  a  currency  not  at  all  its  equivalent;  thus 
despoiling  him  of  a  part  of  his  estate;  especially,  too,  when  (as 
has  been  shown)  nobody  but  the  debtor  would  derive  any 
benefit,  and  that  temporary;  when  the  general  public  interests 
would  not  be  advanced,  and  the  specific  design,  to  wit,  that  of 
placing  the  government  currenc}"  at  par  value  of  specie, 
would,  infallibly,  be  disappointed. 

It  is  one  thing  to  oppose  an  unconscientious,  an  ineffectual, 
an  unjust  and  injurious,  and  an  unconstitutional  measure, 
aimed  at  the  end  of  sustaining  the  Confederate  notes  upon  a 
position  they  cannot  occupy  ;  and  quite  another  thing  to  im- 
peach the  credit  of  the  government  by  throwing  distrust  upon 
its  bills  of  credit,  either  because  an  odious  speculation  is  de- 


36 


signed,  or  there  is  a  pui-pose  to  cut  the  sinews  of  war.  Nobody- 
can  visit  such  conduct  and  such  designs  as  the  latter  with 
more  unqualified  detestation  than  I  do.  It  is  the  redundancy 
of  the  government  issues,  more  than  all  other  causes  com- 
bined, that  graduates  the  comparative  value  of  them.  The 
same  causes  Avould  operate  on  gold  and  silver,  under  the  same 
circumstances,  though,  I  imagine,  never  in  the  same  degree; 
for  the  metal  has  an  intrinsic  value;  the  paper  none:  the  one 
is  money ;  the  other  may  or  may  not  be  its  equivalent,  but 
cannot  be  until  a  contingency,  specified  in  the  promise,  shall 
arise  in  the  future.  Nevertheless,  everybody  knows  that  if  the 
government  fails  to  redeem  its  promises  to  pay,  in  the  end,  be- 
cause it  may  be  exploded,  then  we  and  all  we  have  must  also 
be  ex})loded.  He,  therefore,  is  a  sill}-  enemy  of  the  country 
and  of  himself,  who  seeks  to  undermine  or  to  cripple  the  credit 
of  the  government. 

To  those  who  may  think  I  have  been  beating  the  air — "turn- 
ing up  ocean's  depths  to  drown  a  fly" — by  discussing  patiently 
matters  that  seem  to  tliem  axiomatic,  I  have  to  say,  that  they 
see  not  the  dangers  that  beset  the  Constitution.  I  have  had 
opportunities  to  discover  that  consolidationists  abound  in  this 
Confederacy  —  that  they  are,  and  not  scantily  either,  repre- 
sented in  high  places;  that  the  scheme  I  have  been  discussing 
and  controverting  is  but  the  incipiency,  one  evil  omen,  of  a 
course  of  construction,  exemplified  by  the  Federalists  of  other 
days,  and  their  followers  ever  since ;  all  "  sappers  and  miners  " 
of  the  Constitution,  though  under  a  vast  variety  of  party  desig- 
nations ;  the  effect  of  which,  if  not  the  design,  is  to  cut  loose 
from  our  moorings,  to  evade  the  restraints  of  the  Constitution, 
and  substitute  for  it  the  will  of  a  majority.  We  have,  in  the 
Judiciary  act  of  Congress,  that  fatal  twenty-fifth  section  of  its 
predecessor  of  1789,  which  draws  to  the  footstool  of  the  Su- 
preme court  ever}'  question  of  conflict  between  the  delegated 
powers  and  the  reserved  rights;  and  this  will  preve  the  grave 
of  the  reserved  rights  of  the  States,  if  the  bench  of  the  Su- 
preme court  (now  soon  to  be  filled)  be  occupied  by  those  who 
draw  their  inspirations  from  Marshall  and  Hamilton,  instead  of 
Jeiferson  and  Eoan — who  look  with  veneration  and  deference  to 
the  proclamation  of  Jackson,  rather  than  to  the  Virginia  and 
Kentucky  resolutions  of  1798.    And  who  can  predict  what  sort 


87 


of  material  wifl  be  sought  with  wliich  to  construct  that  court  ? 
I  confess  I  have  my  anxieties.  Even  while  I  write  I  find 
another  omen  in  the  following  language  of  a  Eichmond  news- 
paper, of  September  17,  to  wit :  "  His  (Mr.  Yancey's)  speech 
comes  with  refreshing  effect  after  the  appalling  declaration  of  a 
member  of  the  House,  that,  in  a  certain  contingenc}'^,  ho  would 
be  willing  to  cast  aside  the  Constitution,  and,  as  a  necessary 
consequence,  to  trample  down  the  safeguards  of  public  liberty, 
and  of  the  States,  and  of  the  people."  I  am  afraid  the  teach- 
ings of  the  not  distant  future  may  vindicate  me  from  the  im- 
putation that  I  am  over-zealous,  over-suspicious,  and  over-anxi- 
ous, in  warning  my  countrymen  to  ''scan  the  evil  omens — obsta 
principiis.'' 

I  close  this  discussion,  on  my  part,  by  recapitulating  the 
propositions  I  have  endeavored  to  establish.  They  are  as 
follows : 

1.  That  under  the  power  to  "  coin  money,  regulate  the  value 
thereof  and  of  foreign  coin,"  Congress  has  no  power  to  declare 
their  "bills  of  credit"  a  legal  tender  in  payment  of  debts." 

2.  That  Congress  has  no  power  to  declare  what  shall  be  such 
a  legal  tender ;  that  the  Constitution  declares  what  shall  alone 
be  such,  since  the  prohibition  upon  the  States,  in  that  behalf,  is 
a  negative  pregnant. 

3.  That  Congress  has  no  authority  to  issue  paper  money  at 
all;  a  fortiori,  none  to  declare  it  a  legal  tender  in  pa3'ment  of 
debts. 

4.  That  if  Congress  may  issue  such  a  currency,  it  cannot  also 
make  it  a  legal  tender  in  payment  of  debts ;  for  the  one  power 
is  whoU}^  distinct  from  the  other,  and  they  have  no  connection 
with  each  other. 

5.  That  this  has  never  been  done  under  the  Constitution  of 
the  United  States,  wni\\  the  last  Congress,  which  sat  at  Wash- 
ington, and  which  sat  under  the  restraints  of  no  Constitution. 

G.  That  Alexander  Hamilton  himself  and  his  followers,  under 
the  quondam  United  States  and  their  Constitution,  never  dis- 
tinctly asserted  the  power  of  Congress  to  issue  a  paper  cur- 
rency; but  that  he  earnestly  advised  against  it  as  contravening 
the  "spirit"  of  the  Constitution  and  full  of  danger;  and  he  and 
his  followers  never  went  farther  than  to  make  the  bills  of  the 


38 


Bank  of  the  United  States  and  the  Treasury  notes  receivable  in 
dues  to  the  Federal  government. 

7.  That  the  exercise  of  the  power  in  question,  and  the  adop- 
tion of  the  policy  recommended,  in  and  out  of  Congress,  would 
violate  the  first  principles  of  the  social  compact ;  the  soundest 
maxims  of  wise  legislation;  would  perpetrate  palpable  injus- 
tice between  man  and  man,  by  subverting  the  obligation  of 
contracts;  would,  in  sundry  other  respects,  subvert  also  the 
foundation  upon  which  our  Constitution  rests;  and  would  fail, 
at  last,  to  achieve  the  end  in  view. 

8.  That  under  all  the  views  presented  by  the  subject,  to  infer 
or  imply  a  power  so  potent  for  evil,  and  certainly  not  speciti- 
cally  delegated,  from  the  clause  in  respect  to  *'  necessary  and 
proper"  auxiliary  means  to  specified  ends,  would  substitute 
means  for  ends ;  would  utterly  emasculate  the  Constitution, 
and  turn  loose  the  government  to  depredate  upon  the  rights  of 
the  States,  and  the  rights  and  liberty  of  the  citizen,  witli  no  re- 
straint but  the  sword  of  revolution  in  perspective. 

9.  That  there  ai*e  omens  enough,  now  plainly  visible  in  and 
out  of  Congress,  portending  the  advent  of  such  a  scene  of 
chaos,  lawlessness,  and  ruin ;  and  that,  therefore,  this  is  the 
season,  the  urgent  occasion,  to  act  out  the  primary  maxim, 
commended  by  all  reason  and  experience  to  the  constituency 
of  a  republican  government,  to  wit :  ^^Eternal  vigilance  is  the 
price  of  liberty."  Cato. 


»       o 


